Oral Reading Miscues among Grade 11 Students in a Technical-Vocational High School

Reading is important because it’s a way to get messages or information, and through reading, we can
understand it and use it in the future. This paper used a descriptive research design and content
analysis to determine oral reading miscues of Grade 11 senior high school students in Sta. Margarita,
Samar, Philippines. Findings disclosed that 11th graders’ English performance is considered
satisfactory but does not reflect oral communication and modern literature competence. Students
from Electrical Installation and Maintenance have the most oral mistakes. They are not particular
about academics, especially reading, because they prefer technical-vocational skills. Since their track
is not meticulous about vowel and consonant sounds, they self-correct their mispronounced words.
The EIM class has trouble recognizing and understanding content words, and verbs are the hardest
for them to read. Errors in reading verbs may have affected their understanding of the text because
they change sentence meaning. They had trouble recognizing personal pronouns in the text, unlike
academically inclined GA students. Oral reading miscues committed by Grade 11 students have no
significant effect on their academic performance in Oral Communication and are not the direct cause
of low grades in the subject. As oral communication performance activities are required to pass the
subject, anxiety must have affected their performance. Oral reading fluency is not required to
understand literature texts, so their oral reading miscues are not the direct cause of their low grades
in 21st Century Literature. Results also disclosed that oral reading miscues committed by the students
have no significant impact on their overall academic performance in English, but differences in
learners’ learning styles do. Researchers recommend that students and English teachers provide
intensive oral and silent reading exercises in the classroom to improve academic performance in Oral
Communication and 21st Century Literature, especially those TVL-EIM students.